The new Starbucks coffeeshop on East Market Street in Leesburg has quietly opened for business. The store — built from the ground up on an old bank site in the Leesburg Plaza center — features a drive-thru lane, something the old store across the street lacked.
We’re told the former store, located in the Bellewood Commons shopping plaza, closed a week ago while they transitioned to the new building across the street, next to the Roy Rogers restaurant. The previous storefront is now vacant and available for lease, but no word yet on what tenant might take that spot.
As The Burn has been reporting for several years now, there has been a big push by Starbucks to get out of “inline” spaces — meaning in between other stores in a strip suburban shopping center — and into spaces that allow for drive-thru lanes. This trend started well before the COVID-19 pandemic, because drive-thru lanes dramatically increase store sales. But the need for social distancing has upped the value of drive-thru lanes even further.